At least this is still here. I somehow managed to keep it alive, even though I haven’t posted anything.

So I guess my first question is, what’s the purpose of having a blog anymore, especially if you’re an independent, personal blogger? Blogging is very different today than it was in 2004, when I first started blogging. Back then, it was the “new thing” that everyone was doing. This was pre-Facebook, pre-Twitter, heck even pre-MySpace. There were no Social Networks around to keep everyone connected. They were in development, to be sure — I think Friendster was just starting out at the time (remember that?) — and old-time bloggers will remember Tribe, which was a very early precursor to all that came later.

When Facebook started, you had to keep your posts to the (fairly common) standard of 140 characters, just like Twitter. However today, you can post full articles. Most bloggers prefer to do their blogging on Facebook– it’s easier to maintain, all of your readers are already “friends,” and you don’t have to republish anything. The drawback, of course, is that you can’t attract new readers from outside your friend ‘circle’ unless you make your posts public and hope that it gets shared to the point it goes viral. It’s a rare thing, but it does happen from time to time.

I decided to use Facebook in this way for the last year. I grew tired of having to bounce back and forth from platform to platform when I wanted to get long-winded about something. My friends who read this blog (there aren’t many of you left) will probably back me up when I say I let my long-windedness fly free on Facebook lately, and that’s exactly why.

But all the while, I thought about my lonely blog, sitting here, still getting hits (occasionally) and waiting for me to come back and write again. I tried to restart it a few times. I currently have seven draft posts that never made it past the third or fourth paragraph sitting my in my drafts folder. Titles included:

Dusting it off

Re-Launching… AGAIN.

I still own this blog.

What Whitney Meant (started right after Whitney Houston died)

Back on the wagon (about starting back at the gym)

2011 – A Better Year (a year-end post that got way too long-winded, so I gave up on it)

41 (about my 41st birthday)

So I guess I didn’t completely abandon this blog– I just never really got through a post to get it going again. I’m hoping that I finish this one. It’d be nice to hit “publish again.

After I lost my job in July, I figured it’d be good to restart the blog so I could write out my frustrations and feelings. Or just have a place to let my creative juices flow again. Didn’t quite pan out that way at the time, but now, six months later, I need it again. So here we are.

So where will we go from here? Hard to say. Now that the writing cherry has been popped (sorry for the visual), hopefully ideas and words will flow more freely. I’ll take less space on Facebook and more space here, and simply express myself.

I think my last post was just before my 40th birthday. Right about then I got busy with chorus and the holidays, and next thing I knew it had been a month or two since I had even checked my blog.

So once again, I abandoned ship. Surprised? Not really. I’ve done it before.

Seems I’ve been doing that a lot lately– I start something gung-ho and then let it slip into memory. Consider the casualties: My blog, the gym, my intentions to date again… all have slipped me by at one point or another. And all make re-appearances only to slip away again.

I posted today on Facebook that I was going to give up procrastination for Lent. An ironic statement, being that I haven’t been a practicing Catholic in years; but the punch line made it funny: I said I’d start on it tomorrow.

Yup, so many things get cast aside, and yet time keeps ticking along. I guess in the grand scheme of things, some things have to remain constant.

Back in March, I wrote a nice little post about how I was celebrating my Seven-Year-Blogoversary. I wrote it, checked it, and posted it. I even got a few comments.

And then I did something I thought was silly at the time– I checked back on my blog to the very first post, and something occurred to me.

I was wrong. My Blogoversary wasn’t until July.

Oops!

Down came the post, and into the drafts folder (with the hundred or so other drafts I either started and never finished, or wrote and thought were not good enough for posting) it went.

Well that day has finally come. Seven years ago, I fired up the old Compaq, found my way to Blogger, and started a blog. It wasn’t much then, and truth be told, it isn’t much now– but it was, and is, mine.

I actually forgot that I had started my blog in 2004, when blogging was just starting to gain popularity. Back then, even Perez Hilton, Andy Towle and Arianna Huffington were mere blips on the blogosphere. Feast of Fools/Fun had not even begun to podcast (and podcasting had not even been invented). JoeMyGod was just another up-and-coming gay blogger.

Some of my favorite bloggers are still around, like Tuna Girl, Pua, Scott and Jake (my true-blue Blog Daddy). Others who have left their blogs behind I have reconnected with on Facebook. A few have disappeared into thin air. While we’re still in touch for the most part, I can’t help but have sentimental thoughts about those days on Tribe, (yes, it’s still there!) when the community was really starting to take off. Those were magical, exciting times. I’m proud to have been a part of it.

I’m glad I’m still here, too. It’s nice to have a place where I can look back and remember things I did, people I met, and places I went.

Finally, at long last, I have transfered my “rcktman.com” domain to this blog. The move is complete… I have a new blog home!

My old blog address “http://www.rcktman.com/blog” no longer works, however… so if you still have my blog listed on your blogroll (I’d be surprised if you still did!), it will need to be changed to “http://rcktman.com.” (As of right now, the “www” prefix isn’t working, but after a day or so, I am sure it will work just fine.)

Now that everything is transfered, I hope to get back to some good old fashioned blogging. It’s been a long time, so maybe I’ll get back into it again.